The Night the Bat Got In

How's everyone holding up?

Last week I read an article about the pandemic giving people vivid dreams. Well, this morning I had a doozie.

I guess because today would normally be our weekly meeting day, I dreamed I was in a meeting with some of my co-workers. However, because of the pandemic, the meeting was being held at a co-worker's house, and for some reason it happened to be the same house where my family lived when I was in middle school (or, as we called it then, "junior high").

Before I go any further with the story, I need to tell you a little bit about the house and especially about my bedroom. It was a big two-story house, about a hundred years old, with four bedrooms, a front and back stairway, and a small enclosed foyer between the front door and the living room. My bedroom was at the back of the house. It was by no means the biggest bedroom, but it was definitely the coolest, because it had access to a small second-floor porch and to the attic. And mind you, this wasn't one of those cramped attics where you have to get to it by climbing a ladder, you can't stand up without hitting your head on a rafter, and you have to be careful where you walk or you'll fall through the ceiling. This was a big, old-fashioned attic, fully-floored and accessed by an actual stairway behind a door next to my bed.

In my dream, my co-worker had turned my bedroom and the adjoining attic into a spacious, tastefully-decorated office suite. It bore little resemblance to the room I once occupied, but being there reminded me of something that happened to me over fifty years ago. I told my co-workers the following story, which is absolutely true.

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One night when I was about thirteen, I was awakened by the sound of something flying around my bedroom, something much bigger than the usual fly or mosquito. I had seen bats flying around our neighborhood, so I immediately knew what had happened: somehow, either from the attic or the porch, one had gotten into my room.

My dream audience hung on every word as I described my dilemma: I couldn't stay in the room, but I was terrified to get out of bed. They laughed when I told them how I slowly slid out of my bed and onto the floor, then crawled to the door, reached up and opened it, then quickly exited, quietly shutting the door behind me. I told them how I spent the rest of the night dozing in my father's recliner, how I sneaked back into my room the next day and left the porch door ajar, hoping the bat would be gone by the time I went to bed.

However, the bat must have exited the room when I did, because the following evening it showed up in our living room.

My memory is a little vague about what followed; as I said, this was over fifty years ago. I seem to remember standing on the landing of the front stairs, wielding a broom. I seem to remember the bat flying straight at me. I seem to remember looking directly into its face—and it wasn't one of those cute bat faces; it was horrifying, with lots of teeth. I seem to remember someone screaming, and I'm pretty sure it was me.

I remember that somehow we were able to herd the bat into the foyer and close the inside door on it. Then all I had to do was go out the back door and around to the front of the house, open the front door, and let it fly away.

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Because my dream audience enjoyed the story so much, I woke up thinking I had to write it down. I also thought it would be nice to tie it to National Poetry Month, this being the last day—and didn't Emily Dickinson write a poem about bats?

Of course she did.

THE BAT is dun with wrinkled wings
Like fallow article,
And not a song pervades his lips,
Or none perceptible.

His small umbrella, quaintly halved,
Describing in the air
An arc alike inscrutable,—
Elate philosopher!

Deputed from what firmament
Of what astute abode,
Empowered with what malevolence
Auspiciously withheld.

To his adroit Creator
Ascribe no less the praise;
Beneficent, believe me,
His eccentricities.